Introduction:

Electricity affects our lives as no other thing does or can, and it is one of the most impor­tant forms of energy on earth. Although electricity is as old as the earth itself, it is only in the past 100 years or so that we have learnt to make good use of it. It can be argued that nothing has changed our lifestyles as much as the progressive use of electricity. Energy, the dictionary tells us, is the ability of matter to do work. Electrical energy causes things to do work for us (and it is a form of kinetic energy, or energy in motion). It can make things move, light up or get hot; it can also cool things and produce a complete range of sounds. Without electricity, modern civili­sation would virtually come to a stop. Most factories would no longer be able to mass-produce essential goods, electrical appliances in the home would be useless, there would be no more electric lighting and heating at the flick of a switch, and communication systems would disintegrate.

Electricity generation accounts for about 30 per cent of the nation’s total energy consumption. Around Australia, the installed generation capacity comprised 45,000MW in 2005/2006, according to the Energy Supply Association of Australia (ESAA). It is expected the electricity load in 2030 will be some 65 per cent higher than its current level and installed generation capacity will need to grow from 45,000MW to around 75,000MW.

Above - A school room before the advent of electricity and the wonders of the modern world. How would you cope if there was suddenly no electricity?

You would be plunged back into an era when nearly all chores in the home were done by hand. This was not all that long ago because electricity has only been developed as a popular form of energy during the past 100 years. Before then, most women spent their days tending to household drudgeries. The washing was done by hand using boiling hot water. Cooking was done on wood stoves. The children usually chopped the wood as one of their chores. They also chopped wood for their fireplaces. As the vacuum cleaner did not exist, the family’s well-used rugs were hung over the washing line and beaten hard with a broom to get the dust and dirt out. If you wanted to iron your clothes, you would heat an iron on top of the wood stove and wait until it was hot enough to get the creases out of the linen.

Because there was no television or radio, people indulged in “the art of conversation” or had “singsongs” around the piano for entertainment. In those days, pianos were a very popular attraction in the home. In the business office, the men would work out all accounts without the use of calculators - even if there were thousands and thousands of bills. People who were good with numbers were in hot demand. In factories and other industries, many of the boring, repetitive, grimy and dangerous jobs now done by machines were done by people.

Then, in 1879, Thomas Alva Edison improved on the 50-year-old light bulb and produced a reliable, long-lasting source of electric light. Edison’s eventual achievement was the incandescent electric light and an associated electric lighting system.

For more information, go to:
http://www.ideafinder.com/history/inventions/story074.htm

It did not take people long to see the advantages of electricity and they began to use it rapidly to do work for them. Electricity runs innumerable labour-saving appliances in the home. Now, the amount of electrical energy used in homes every week is equivalent to the energy produced by more than 30 human servants working a 40-hour week! In 1930 there were about 19 elec­trical appliances available in the major department stores.

There are now hundreds of appliances on offer, with new technology being developed continually. With these electric servants, the average person at home can do 10 times as much work as his or her grandparents in about half the time!

So what exactly is electricity? How is electricity stored in batteries and how does it travel through wires? This is the story of electricity, what it is, how it is produced and its journey from the power station to your home.

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